Wood frame Victorian houses beside truck yards and rail lines, and the fenced 16th Street Station Funny Lady used as a Cleveland depot.
What West Oakland looks like
stands at Wood Street in Beaux-Arts stone and terracotta, its main hall a 13,000 square foot room under a 42 foot ceiling with stone and plaster finishes. The building has been fenced and vacant since 1994, so its facade and the elevated platform behind it are seen from the sidewalk rather than entered.
sits a few blocks south on 7th Street, an elevated concrete structure with the platform running above the roadway. The line crosses over several of the numbered streets on its way east, columns down the center of the road.
Away from the station, wood frame Victorian houses from the 1880s and 1890s line the side streets, one and two storeys with painted wood siding. Warehouses and truck yards sit close behind them on some of the same blocks.
runs along the route of the old Cypress Street Viaduct, a wide boulevard with a landscaped median in place of the freeway deck. Cypress Freeway Memorial Park sits on the parkway at 14th Street, a lawn and trees between the frontage roads. Rail yards and truck routes continue south toward the , where container cranes rise over the warehouse roofs. runs straight toward the hills, shipping containers stacked on one side and a new mid-rise apartment building on the other.
Shot in West Oakland
16th Street Station has drawn several productions to its Beaux-Arts hall. Funny Lady and Rent both used it, and the HBO film Hemingway and Gellhorn and Chu Chu and the Philly Flash filmed there too. Blindspotting later moved production a mile south, filming its first season along Peralta Street and at the Port of Oakland in March 2021.
16th Street Station
Wood Street at 16th. The fenced Beaux-Arts hall has stood in for a Cleveland depot and a Madrid hotel without changing its own facade.
Funny Lady, 1975
16th Street Station
Played a Cleveland train depot
The 1975 film Funny Lady used 16th Street Station's Beaux-Arts hall as a Cleveland train depot. The scene used the same 13,000 square foot room and 42 foot ceiling the station still has.
Hemingway and Gellhorn, 2012
Played Hotel Florida, Madrid, Spain
The HBO film Hemingway and Gellhorn shot at 16th Street Station as a stand in for the Hotel Florida in Madrid. The station's terracotta cladding and stone finishes carried the scene.
Blindspotting
Port of Oakland
Production on the Starz series Blindspotting began in West Oakland in March 2021, sited along Peralta Street at 7th, 14th and 16th. The Port of Oakland's container terminals were also on the shoot list, a few blocks south of those corners.
Wood frame Victorian cottages sit close to rail yards and the port in Strathcona, the same pairing of housing and industry found in West Oakland. Its blocks near the rail corridor are the closest match for the 1880s through the 1910s. Strathcona's houses run smaller and more mixed in colour, so a single block face holds the illusion better than a wide street shot. Try searching wood frame Victorian cottages now.
The Market-Frankford Line runs elevated over Kensington's streets much the way BART runs over 7th Street here, with rowhouses and small industrial buildings under the same structure. Both neighborhoods put columns down the middle of a working street rather than a park or plaza. Kensington's brick rowhouses and narrower street width give it away in a wide shot, so tighter frames under the tracks hold the match best. Try searching elevated line over rowhouses now.
Port Morris pairs truck yards and rail spurs near the water, close to the mix of industry and port character West Oakland has around Mandela Parkway. Nobody has documented a production using it for this exact substitution. Port Morris runs flatter with fewer overhead structures, so a shot that avoids the Manhattan skyline in the background holds the match. Try searching truck yards near the water now.
